


I Gave You All

by HisMightyShield



Category: War Horse (2011)
Genre: Edwardian Period, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Repression, World War I
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-20
Updated: 2012-12-20
Packaged: 2017-11-21 17:37:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,397
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/600385
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HisMightyShield/pseuds/HisMightyShield
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Upon his death, Jim reflects on the most important decision of his life -- and why he made it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Gave You All

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Tibby](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tibby/gifts).



> Recently, I've been re-reading a lot of E.M. Forrester & James Joyce in the past few months so I was really in the mood to write a narrative with a lot of focus on the interior thoughts and emotions of one character. I wish I had more time to spend on fact-checking to add a bit more depth to the historical realism of the piece, and it might be something I'll re-visit at a later time.

What hurt most was the knowing. The sudden flash of acceptance that cut deeper and burned hotter than any bullet. It was the realisation that I was going to die, smelling the smoke and the damp grass, tasting the bitter metallic swell of blood sputtering up from lungs which no longer dared work. All the while knowing without doubt what brought me here. The twists of fate that were entirely woven by myself and my desires consumed my thoughts. As was fear of what might happen to me when I shut my eyes and gave in to the darkness that was muting the sounds around me and cutting into my sight. I was afraid because of my lack of regret -- my lack of repentance -- and that the last words on my lips were neither plea nor prayer, but the name of the man I loved.

It truly is difficult to remember a time before the war. Though not terribly long ago, the mentality that one has to adopt to accept the business of fighting and dying for one’s country and freedom is so pervasive that it blocks out everything; it’s a cloud moved across the sun. All other hopes, dreams and aspirations are set aside. Individuality is replaced with rank and personality with giving and obeying commands. It is, all of it, utterly romanceless and not the backdrop for any conventional love story. But then, I suppose what I was yearning for was so far from conventional that I failed to recognise it at first. I merely followed it.

Which is perhaps why this love story begins with a wedding instead of, as tradition would have it, ending in one. 

After a long engagement, my sister Elizabeth’s wedding was set for November 27th, 1913. Her husband, a man by the name of Matthew Elliott, was both wealthy, being the son of an impressive landowner, and sincere. I had grown quite fond of him and was invited on the eve of the ceremony to meet with him and his fellow groomsmen for a night of dinner and conversation to celebrate the next day’s union.

While I had no concept of the significance of that night at the time, it is impossible to recollect a second of it without feeling as though the fates were already hard at work, weaving a future for me with delicate fingers. A web that I would stumble into blindly and be unable and unwilling to escape.

I had always been aware of my own less-than-natural proclivities. I considered them to be an unfortunate shame of my past and took every precaution to ensure that they were not the driving force of my future. When I was but fourteen, I found myself rather infatuated with our family’s stable boy. He was a slender though sturdy young man at least five years older than myself, with a sullen but kind face and a mop of dark curls that he concealed haphazardly with a herringbone cap. I used to follow him about the grounds during the summers I was home from St. Dominic’s. Though far too frightened to ever speak to him, his presence was too captivating to resist.. One day, he caught my gaze and invited me to go with him down to the pond behind our property for a swim.

We stripped down and stood, looking at each other. I did not speak, and I was positive that my face was flushed with embarrassment, fear of discovery and an overwhelming desire to be touched; to feel his hands on me. He grabbed my wrist first, muttered something about just standing there and pushed me down into the high reeds by the water's edge. He kissed me with a mouth that tasted like sweet grass and tobacco. 

My skin was alive beneath his fingertips and he kept our bodies together, his thighs pressed eagerly between mine. The rest of our first encounter is a bit blurred, mixed and crossed with the ten or more other times that summer we would meet by the pond. He became all I could think about. When we finished, we lay apart to let out skin cool in the midday breeze, he would always give me a cigarette and from then on I could only associate the smell with him. After I returned to [boarding school] in the autumn, I would sneak out behind the cricket sheds and smoke them, ashamed but aroused, as I thought of that man.

When I met Anna, after school and my trysts were all far behind me, I thought I might be able to bury entirely the misdirected desires of my youth. She was a school teacher herself, and the daintiest thing beneath a bonnet in Birmingham. I asked for her hand two months before my sister was meant to wed Matthew and everyone thought we were smartly matched. Though I agreed she was beautiful and we were well-suited, I did not feel that unhinged _need_ or passion that I'd felt before. I ignored this, of course, positive that leaving boyhood behind meant laying such a basic understanding of desire aside as well.

Seated at the table with my future brother-in-law's groomsmen, my thoughts were only on Anna, though they were far from pleasant. I was staring around the table with a swamp of dread settling into my stomach as I realised I was but a few months away from being a groom myself. From committing the rest of my life to a woman I was still trying to convince myself I loved.

“Dreadful business, isn’t it?” The man to my left whom I did not know had leaned toward me. Bored, he had turned to me for conversation, rousing me from my dreadful thoughts. I turned and looked at him properly for the first time since he’d seated himself and was met by a pair of the most astonishingly blue eyes I had ever seen. I meant to ask him what business it was he thought dreadful, but only managed to stammer a few wordless syllables as I was so immediately captivated by him.

“The business of weddings,” he offered in a low voice, quite obviously sheepish at the prospect of bringing up the topic in such company and on such occasion, but he seemed resolved to it. “What with God and country, I should think men have more than enough commitments in their lives, wouldn’t you say? Jamie Stewart, by the way. You are?”

“Jim,” I said, taking his offered hand and offering him a smile. “Brother of the impending commitment.”

“God, man, I’m sorry. I meant nothing by it.” He chuckled, and I noticed he didn’t shy away from embarrassment, but rather seemed to enjoy his misstep. I liked that immensely as it seemed to alleviate the typical awkwardness that usually accompanied the beginnings of conversation with complete strangers.

“It’s quite all right,” I promised before glancing down the length of the table to make sure my brother-in-law could not overhear what I was about to say: "Between us, I won't pretend I don't agree. Nothing against my Elliott there, or my sister -- but I'm rather not looking forward to my own."

I watched as Jamie's smile slide from something polite to something more engaged. He had, I could tell already, a very expressive face. The sort that made it near impossible to lie. I knew already that I was going to enjoy speaking to him, though it was difficult for me to listen to what he was saying and not just be entirely distracted by how handsome he was. Were I not drawn in by his eyes, I could have gazed forever at the sharp edges of his cheekbones, the slope of his jaw or the soft curve of his mouth.

Throughout our dinner, I learned all about Stewart. He was an army man, a captain already, and he had taken a brief leave to attend Elliott's wedding, whom he knew from the time they had both spent at Oxford. He spoke to me well into the night. Long after our dinner plates had been cleared away and most of the other guests had gone into the other room for cigars and brandy. We stayed just where we were, entirely engaged with each other. Or at least, I draped myself from each of his words and listened with intent as he explained his interest in economics. In turn, he asked me my thoughts on Duchamp when I told him I wished to be an illustrator.

"Well, Jim." Stewart said, butting out a final cigarette. The house was quiet now; even Elliott had gone up to his room to worry away his time, sleepless with pre-marital nerves. "We've a wedding in a few hours which neither of us should attend dead on our feet. I suppose we both ought to retire."

Our bodies were turned almost completely towards each other and I supported my weight on a hand that rested between us on the edge of my seat. I could practically feel the warmth of him. I'd consumed enough wine to let my mind wander to those disgraceful thoughts that normally I might banish. Under the influence, though, I dwelled on how good it would feel to slip a hand between the heat of his thighs. I imagined what he'd taste like, a cross of tobacco, fine scotch and wine. His presence was more intoxicating than anything I could drink and I could barely fight down my desire to consume him completely.

"Yes," I agreed. I had spent the last hour reluctant to accept that this moment was inevitable, but I knew we couldn't sit there forever. Still, faced with it now I was more than a touch dismayed. "You're staying here, are you?"

"I am. Elliott has a room for me, in fact." His words came slowly, distracted. He kept his eyes low, on the table, smoothing a non-existent wrinkle from the cloth as he continued to speak. "I imagine you could stay as well, there is certainly enough space in my room."

There was little doubt that his invitation was identical in nature to that of the stable boy of my youth. I couldn't say exactly how I knew what he was truly asking for, only that I knew but it was an opportunity that I knew I shouldn't take. The night before my sister's wedding, not to mention the fact we were in my brother's house, it was an impossible risk.

"I can't," I whispered and my stomach twisted unpleasantly as I moved my hand from the seat of my chair to his leg. There was always a chance I was wrong, after all, that I might swirl his hospitality with my own corrupt desires to make his pleasantries take on what I wished them to mean.

Stewart did not move and I swear, my heart did not beat. For what felt like an eternity neither of us did anything, and I was about to pull my hand away and sputter an embarrassed apology when I felt warm fingers wrap around my wrist and his leg slide closer to mine.

"No one would think on it, man," he assured, sliding his hand from wrist to my leg, reaching in to dig his fingers along the inner seam of my trousers.

Against my sense and better judgement, I was drawn to him. I shook off the space that remained between us and leaned in to claim the lips that I'd spent hours admiring. His kiss was firm, but my mouth melted against his as I confirmed all my theories about how he might taste. I had spent so long trying to deny myself of every thought and inclination towards another man that every movement of his hand or slide of his tongue seemed intensified. I did my best to get lost in him. To focus on the hand inching up my thigh and forget every detail of where I was and what obligations the next day would bring, but I couldn't.

"Any other night," I told him desperately, after pulling back and breaking our intimacy with a disappointed sigh. I moved my hand off his leg to settle it against his neck instead. I was overcome, uttering impassioned nonsense. Although I kept telling both Stewart and myself that I couldn't stay with him, I was positive that it would be _me_ that I would have more trouble convincing. "You could have me any other night, every night if you wanted."

"There can be no other night, Jim. I'm afraid I'm due to leave for Basingstoke first thing after the ceremony. I'm sorry."

"God," I said, "not as sorry as I am."

There was so much that I carried home with me that night. The feeling of Jamie's presence stayed with me like a ghost. A hundred times I cursed myself for not taking him up on his invitation to stay. It didn't matter that logically I couldn't, what mattered was the fact that I did not think I could bare the thought of him walking out of my life. I truly felt like he'd completely changed me. I realised that no matter how long I ignored my thoughts and desired, I would always be searching for a person to reciprocate. Nothing I was doing was fair to the young woman whose heart I held,

As I lay awake throughout the night, it occurred to me that it wasn't simply the fact he invited me to stay that was the reason I still dwelled on him. In truth, I'd admired him. It was him that I desired, him that I wanted. Not any man, but Jamie Stewart, the incredible captain who'd taken a single evening of my life and left it changed.

I deserve no praise for what I did the next morning. I don't consider it brave, but cowardly. There was no time to discuss with my mother or my dear Anna before the wedding and so instead I spent the rest of my sleepless night writing both my parents and my future wife letters to explain myself. I went to the wedding with a satchel packed, determined to leave Birmingham with Jamie. Determined to join the army if that's what it took to be near him.

My life was his. From that very moment until the bitter end.


End file.
